Have you ever seen the romcom, About Time (2013)?
Well, I hadn't.
But then I met a girl. I had a bit of a crush on her.
She told me that the movie About Time was the blueprint for the perfect man—her ideal type.
So I watched it.
No—I studied it.
Apparently, this is her type:
An awkward, skeletal British guy (Domhnall Gleeson) who just can't get it right with women. He gets nervous around them and starts mumbling and tripping over his words, and you can tell that just talking with him is really embarrassing for everyone involved.
Honestly, not far off from yours truly.
But, to his credit, the guy is family-oriented and a determined lover who is head over heels for a woman named Mary (Rachel MacAdams).
Oh, and he's got a time machine.
So every time he fumbles with Mary, he just hops in the time machine for a do-over. Over and over and over again.
Until eventually he gets his Mary. After countless fumbles and failures, he hits the unique combo of phrases, circumstances, and lighting that makes Mary fall in love with him.
So, to get my Mary, I just need to act like Gleeson:
- Awkward? Check.
- Lanky, skeletal frame? Check.
- Get really nervous around women you like? Check.
- Pale, verging on translucent complexion? Check.
- Nice? Check.
This should be a slam dunk—right?
Reader, this may come as a surprise: I did not get my Mary. (Her loss!)
The male brain is so literal.
Over the years, I discovered that women speak a special dialect of English—one which resembles the standard dialect, but whose expression does not necessarily correspond with its meaning. Thus:
- What she said: I want someone like him
- What she did not mean: I want someone like him
- What she meant: I want someone who makes me feel like Rachel MacAdams does when she fell in love with him—i.e., the one time he got it right.
Why do women give such bad dating advice?
For the same reason that readers give such bad feedback on your writing.
Like women in the dating market, readers know what they like and what they don't like.
But neither can tell you why.
When a text doesn't work, they'll describe the difficulty with vague, unhelpful terms. They'll say things like: It's dense. It's disorganized. It's unclear.
Feedback like that is unhelpful because it only tells you how the reader feels. It doesn't tell you what is causing that feeling.
Likewise, when a text works, readers won't know why—because, like the dork from About Time, all the labor and mistakes that go into a piece that works is hidden from view.
If your text works, the reader isn't looking at your text; they're looking through it, at the world.
So people can describe the experience they want with precision. But they can't describe what produces it. Those require two different kinds of knowledge, and only one of them is available from inside the reading experience.
I see this every time a writer brings me feedback on a draft. They've usually heard some unhelpful feedback from beta readers or other editors: The text is dense, unclear, doesn't flow.
Each of those words describe the experience of friction. But not one of them describes its cause.
So the writer tries in vain to use this feedback to edit sentences, because they think the text is made of sentences. But the problem is not in the correspondence between the sentences and the writer's idea. The problem is in the correspondence between the sentences and the reader.
Like any romantic partner, your reader carries expectations they have never articulated and couldn't articulate if you asked. They don't know why your third paragraph lost them. They only know they drifted.
So take their feedback seriously, not literally.
Which means stop asking readers for feedback.
You don't ask a fish how to catch a fish.
You don't ask a woman how to get her to fall in love with you.
And you don't ask a reader what's wrong with your draft.
Readers don't know why they like one text and not another; they just do. If you ask them why, they'll confabulate some reason.
The truth is in the patterns they use to read. They can't see those patterns, because nobody can watch themselves read. But you can—if you download my free Visual Guide to Expert Writing.
Each pattern is based on reader psychology, and they're the same patterns for every reader.
Once you know these patterns, your readers will love your text—and only you will know why.
And if you want to get my feedback on your writing (or just some bad dating advice), book in a 1:1 call here.
Cheers/William
PS-When you finally figure out what makes readers fall in love.
